I look at the roadside and see good grazing, at a fallen tree and see a jump. My phone autodials the farrier and my Mini hauls feed, so naturally my blog is about horses.

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A Glass Half Full of Ponies

Before the Carnation seizure, I knew Dr. Hannah Evergreen as a local vet who was committed to helping rescues, an expert in the minor and major woes of the neglected horse. Through her many visits to the Carnation horses at SAFE, and the preparation for the candlelight vigil, I got a glimpse of her larger plan.

One day at the end of May, I got a chance to do an afternoon of rounds with her. We talked about the ambitious vision for a rehabilitation center for neglected or abused horses that she had revealed at the vigil. There is a reason I believe she has the commitment level and the willpower to really pull this together.

In 2002, Dr. Hannah Evergreen was a third year vet student at Oregon State. As with most vet schools in relatively rural areas, the primary support for the large animal program came from the agriculture industry. The professors came from that background also, and tended to treat animals as livestock units. A farm animal’s live or death is dictated by whether it is making an economic contribution or is a deficit on the balance sheet. The vet school was run the same way.

Every year the school would buy pony colts (cheaper and less expensive to maintain than horses) at auction. The vet students performed a variety of procedures on their assigned ponies, including castration, through the duration of the course. The ponies were then euthanized and their cadavers used for tendon and bowel surgeries that were somewhat risky and required a prolonged rehabilitation for a living patient. It would have cost the school money to maintain the ponies after the coursework was completed.

The school seemed to disregard the emotional impact of working closely with a pony over the course of the class and then being required to kill it. Perhaps this too was part of the curriculum – a toughening up for the “real world” of agricultural practice.

Small animal vet schools had long since shifted to alternatives. Even at Oregon State, , some large animal students had come up with an alternative curriculum ten years earlier, but the University had not adopted it.

It took another generation to force a change. Amongst that generation were Hannah (then Mueller) and Brad Evergreen, who were becoming increasingly conflicted about the requirement for the subjects of their senior year to be subjected to terminal surgery as part of the curriculum.

Hannah was a dedicated horsewoman since childhood, and so being horseless was not an option. She and Brad lived at a local farm where they bartered work hours in exchange for horse board. That cut into their time for academic study, but helped maintain a little mind/body balance too.

They soon discovered that activism could become even more time-consuming.

Their proposal, with its strong aroma of animal rights, rattled the cage of their professor and the reverberations reached the Dean’s office. Hannah and Brad were called in and grilled. Was this part of some sinister movement to shut down the vet school?

That was far from their intention. If they didn’t graduate, they would not be in a position to practice their vocation -but they did intend to instigate change by influencing the actions of their fellow students.

By the start of the class, 3 groups of students had joined them, and in the end, they were able to save six of the twelve ponies. All six came to live at the farm with Hannah and Brad, who soon found themselves building fences when the ponies started pruning the orchard full of apple trees. Within 3 months, five of the ponies had found homes. The sixth was Forest, Hannah’s pony, who still lives with her and Brad today.

Forest was happily unaware of the drama that swirled around him. He did make a final reappearance at the vet school at an open house where he did duty as a lead line pony.

A photo of him from that, decked with ribbons, still decorates Hannah’s clipboard.

Hannah, of course, was holding the lead rope, and she made sure to tell the parents of the children the whole of Forest’s story, regardless of the glares she was getting from the Dean.

In retrospect, Hannah has no regrets except that they were not able to save the other six ponies. She and Brad did both manage to complete their academic work so they could receive their diploma. Their activist work left a legacy as well — the alternative curriculum is still part of the program at OSU.

It is a shame that it may take another ten years before compulsory euthanasia is the alternative, not the rule. The wheels of change grind slowly at institutions when the old guard holds the reins. My email inquiry about the current policy of the program has received a response, but not an answer since I sent it almost two months ago.

For Forest, it doesn’t matter. It was the action of individuals, not institutions, that protected his life. He has no idea that he was simply the wrong size. Hannah believes that he was a cull from a pony breeding program because he was an undesirable in-between height, greatly reducing his value.

If you meet Forest, that will be hard to believe. He is a very attractive, well-built pony of good character. At the moment, he gives lead line rides to visiting children – Hannah considers that training for a future family member. She has toyed with the idea of teaching him to drive, but her busy practice doesn’t leave a lot of spare time.

I hope to see him again at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Dr. Hannah’s planned Rehabilitation Center. In his own small way, he is a powerful symbol of how two people managed to catalyse change – as well as a job that is not finished yet. Vet school is just a microcosm of the larger world, where economics often dictate life or death for horses, even over relatively minor or short-term issues. Dr. Hannah wants to create both a better way to help them and to educate another generation of vet students on, how to recognize patterns of neglect and effectively rehabilitate neglected horses. Through collaborative relationships with both Animal Control and rescue groups who would place rehabilitated horses, the center could become a key link in the chain that brings horses back from the brink.

If you get a chance to talk to her after her demonstrations at Celebrate the Horse, ask her about that. She’ll need a really good fund raising maven – but it is a project that could make a real difference for horses who currently fall through the cracks.

She will talk about holistic practice and bodywork – with some hands on demos:

Saturday at 3:00, 4:45 and 5:30 at the Red Barn
Sunday at 10:30, 1:00 and 5:30 at the Red Barn

You can spot the fairgrounds in Puyallup by the tall tower with a yellow top. There are several public parking lots. Event organizer Patty Kelley is excited about the pre-sales of tickets they have received – people are coming all the way from Canada and Oregon for this event, she told me when I saw in the barn aisle yesterday.

It’s not a horse show – it’s about having fun with horses, remembering why we do all of this in the first place, and passing it along to the next generation. So don’t miss out on this special event, which benefits People Helping Horses and their new program for kids. And go find the SAFE booth too.

I’ll be riding myself in the Akhal-Teke demonstrations at 3:30 Saturday and 3:00 Sunday in the main arena.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..